From the Dean

The new academic year has begun, and for the first time since 2007, we are beginning an academic year without the threat of impending budget cuts. Even better, our resident undergraduate students begin this new year knowing that their tuition costs will remain fixed at their 2012-13 levels until at least the fall of 2015. As a result, students, parents, faculty, and even deans will be able to plan their budgets for the next two years with a degree of confidence in the future that we have not felt for a long time.

Bob Stacey. Photo by Jacob Lambert.

For this happy turn of events, we owe the State Legislature a great debt of thanks. In a difficult budgetary year for the state of Washington, our legislators were able to restore some portion of the revenues they had cut from higher education in the previous four years. This was not easy. But they were emboldened to do so by the tremendous outpouring of support for higher education across the state that came from newspapers, businesses, citizens, parents, and students, who joined together to make the case that investing in higher education is the very best way to invest in our state’s future. To everyone who participated in these efforts, thank you!

We can see the future of our state in the faces of the 6,200 freshmen who enrolled at the University of Washington this fall. This is the largest entering class we have ever had, selected from the largest pool of applications for admission we have ever received. Two-thirds of these entering freshmen come from the state of Washington. The next largest group—around 18%—is made up of students from the other 49 states. International students represent about 15% of the entering class. We will also enroll more than 1,700 new transfer students this fall, of whom 79% are from Washington state community colleges.

Two-thirds of these entering freshmen come from the state of Washington. ...We will also enroll more than 1,700 new transfer students this fall, of whom 79% are from Washington state community colleges.

As I hope these numbers will make clear, we remain the University of Washington, with a strong commitment, first and foremost, to educating the students of our own state. Altogether, around three-quarters of our undergraduate student body comes from the state of Washington, and more than 70% of our students will remain in the state of Washington after they graduate.

Our students come to us from all over the state, and our educational, cultural, medical, and economic impact is felt in every one of our state’s 39 counties. We are proudly a public institution—indeed, the Times of London Higher Education Supplement has just rated us the fourth best public university in the country—and we look forward to continuing to serve the citizens of this state in the future, just as we have done in the past.